I am not the only one convinced Diana and Giles were made for each other. Convincing my stubborn, cynical sister of that fact, however, is proving to be a challenge …
—from the diary of Miss Venus Merriwell, aged 18
“There has been an incident.” Mrs. Witherspoon met her at the door of the orphanage the moment Vee walked through it at eight. “Unsurprisingly, it involves the Claypoles.”
“Oh dear.” Tommy had been doing so well of late, too. “Another silly prank?” If it involved spiders again, she wasn’t sure she wouldn’t strangle him.
“If you call breaking and entering and injuring a person silly.” The older woman’s expression was grave as she wrung her hands. “The reverend has had to summon the physician.”
“What!” Because the matron had quickened her pace, Vee did, too. “Is the injury that bad?”
“One of them is bad enough to need stitches.” Which rather suggested there were multiple injuries involved. “I pray the stitches are enough to stop an infection setting in.” Which rather suggested the wound needing stitches was big.
Mrs. Witherspoon gestured toward the office where both Tommy and Sydney stood shamefaced like two sentries outside. The dried blood of several small nicks and cuts marred their freckled faces, but even wounded she had little sympathy for them and wagged her finger at them in outright disgust. “I shall deal with you two later!” The twins withered some more at her outrage as she marched past to slam her palm against the office door.
“I’m not sure that you should go in there yet!”
Mrs. Witherspoon’s panicked warning came a second too late and Vee was confronted with the sight of Galahad Sinclair spread-eagled facedown over the reverend’s desk, his naked backside practically staring her in the face.
“Oh my goodness!” Her hands flew to her mouth too late to prevent the high-pitched sound that came out. While they were too late for that, they were in time to clutch her suddenly beetroot-red cheeks. That it never occurred to her palms to cover her staring eyes when she couldn’t find the strength to avert her gaze only made her face hotter. “Oh my goodness!”
The door swung shut behind her and still she stared. “What on earth has happened?”
Her wayward eyes were so fixed on the taut, firm bottom displayed to the world in all its glory, it took them at least half a minute to realize that the reverend and the physician were also in the room, and a goodly few seconds more to notice the inch-long wound on the exposed left buttock that the physician was in the midst of stitching.
After what must have been an eternity of gawping, Vee had to go into battle with her eyeballs to wrench them away from Galahad’s pert posterior to focus on his pinched face.
“He was ravaged by pigeons by all accounts,” said the reverend, enjoying the surreal spectacle more than a man of the cloth should.
“How on earth…?” Vee internally had some stern words with her eyes to prevent them from wandering back to his backside. “Pigeons? Pigeons?” Apparently, she was so overcome by the splendid sight of some unexpected male nudity that now even full sentences eluded her.
“Funny story.” The man himself managed to grunt this through gritted teeth as the physician’s needle pierced his skin again. “Your most loyal left-tenant decided the best way to stop me putting my club next door was to sabotage the builders.” He paused to wince again. Letting his breath out in a whoosh as another stitch was tied. “It turns out that he has been terrorizing my tradesmen for days. To begin with, he broke in and hid all their tools. After all the tools had been found, Tommy picked the lock again and removed them all to the yard where he left them to rust in the elements, and last night—”
He stiffened with another light grunt, his white-knuckled fingers grabbing the desk so tight she only just stopped hers from reaching out to grip them in support. “—or early this morning to be more precise—young Tommy decided it would be hilarious to fill the attic with four furious and feral pigeons to welcome Mr. Evans and his merry team of craftsmen as soon as they arrived. Trouble was, dear Master Claypole did not realize that, anticipating more skulduggery, I had spent the night in the building awaiting him and—” He growled in pain as another stitch got knotted. “—well, let’s just say that we surprised each other and then the damn pigeons surprised us all.”
“The pigeons did this?” She allowed her eyes to flick to his behind, where they couldn’t help noticing how impressively tense his buttocks were rather than analyze the severity of the wound. How on earth did they get that way when he prefers to walk everywhere rather than ride? Lord Argyll rode everywhere and his weren’t so … developed.
“Not directly.” To his credit, much as it pained her to give the wretch any credit for anything, Galahad was bearing the ordeal with admirable stoicism. “After Tommy’s hammer missed my head but nearly broke my foot, I was down a leg when the pigeons escaped and tried to peck my eyes out, so something had to give. Thankfully, before my butt hit the floor a handy stewpot kindly broke my fall.” He squeezed his eyes shut as the needle jabbed again. “Now that the good doctor here has dug the bulk of that pot out from inside me, he’s practicin’ his embroidery while he closes the hole.”
There was so much to take in from that summary, so many gaps in the story that her imagination tried and failed to fill, that Vee didn’t quite know what to say.
Her muteness, and her overwhelming desire to feast her eyes on her new sworn enemy’s delectable buttocks, made her blink dumbfounded at the reverend in the hope that he could shed some more light on the debacle. With a grin he did.
“Before you ask, as I know you will, Vee, and my apologies in advance, Mr. Sinclair, for the intentional pun, but I have yet to get to the bottom of precisely where the pigeons came from.”
“Haha,” said the injured party deadpan, not the least bit offended. “Very droll, Reverend. You should be on the stage.”
“Out of tears come laughter.” The Reverend Smythe chuckled, unrepentant. “And I suspect there is a whole separate and entertaining tale behind the procuring of the pigeons that has thus far been denied me. All I have managed to wheedle out of Tommy, in his brief and panicked confession, is that entrapping them somehow involved bread and Mrs. Witherspoon’s old blanket basket.”
“You have to admire the boy’s industry, if nothing else.” Again, Galahad’s response to the crime against his person surprised her. “He’ll go far, that boy, with those impressive problem-solving skills. Unless they send him to jail first, of course.”
“At this stage, Mr. Sinclair, I fear it could go either way.” The reverend shrugged before dismissing Tommy’s eventual fate as part of life’s rich tapestry that was out of his control. “But back to the summary, Vee.” He smiled as if he were having a grand day out rather than watching a man’s backside being stitched. “I have sworn testimony from Tommy that they decided to release said trapped pigeons into Mr. Sinclair’s attic to frighten his tradesmen exactly as our patient has already stated, with the intention of preventing them from working on the building and thereby, after a sustained assault, eventually preventing Sodom and Gomorrah from ever opening.”
Vee winced at the telling use of her exact phrase and realized she had to shoulder some of the blame for this. Spewing her pent-up hurt and anger in front of Tommy had undoubtedly influenced him, and she really should have admonished him rather than thanked him when he had declared that any enemy of hers was also his. Culpability she would explain to the reverend in private later when the punishments were divvied out.
If he noticed her guilt, the Reverend Smythe did not show it and continued retelling what he had learned of the story with a smile on his face and a twinkle in his eye. “The hammer throwing was, I am assured, nothing more than an involuntary reaction born out of self-defense after Mr. Sinclair surprised Tommy, and the lad has repeatedly reiterated how sorry he is for it. But of course, that does not condone what consequently happened to our injured neighbor’s poor back paw.”
“Why on earth did he have a hammer in the first place?” Of their own accord, Vee’s eyes drifted to the distracting bottom again. There was something strangely hypnotic about it. A compelling allure that made her mouth go dry and her fingers itch to explore it.
“To nail my windows shut … so the tradesmen couldn’t shoo those lunatic birds out … easily.” Galahad’s voice was a staccato series of grunts as the doctor tied the final stitch. “Obviously.”
“Indeed.” The reverend nodded as if this explanation concurred with the Claypoles’ version of events. “But while the boys have confessed to bringing the pigeons into the building with the express intention of releasing the birds to fowl mischief.” He chuckled again at his second inappropriate but intentional pun in as many minutes. “Sydney Claypole is quite adamant their release at the precise moment of the incident was an unfortunate accident, and that they had no clue that the pigeons they had procured were vicious attack pigeons, or that pigeons as a species were quite so vengeful after incarceration. It was, Tommy and Sydney both stressed when separately interrogated, the pigeons who were guilty of knocking Mr. Sinclair over. They have, however, acknowledged that he wouldn’t have fallen over in the first place if they hadn’t broken into his premises with the birds.”
“Do we know where the birds are now?” In the grand scheme of things, it wasn’t the most important question to be asking, but with the doctor now rubbing salve onto Galahad’s skin, and the muscles in his mesmerizing behind squeezing in time with the motions in the most diverting manner, it was a miracle she could ask one at all.
“Still flapping around my attic, I reckon.” The owner of the impressive backside shrugged matter-of-factly despite his prone position. “I managed to shut them in, in case those bloodthirsty birds decided to chase us and peck us to death, then delivered the boys back here for you to deal with. Because frankly, after the havoc they caused me this morning, I am over the moon that they are not my problem.”
“That’s exactly what he said when he delivered them.” The Reverend Smythe seamlessly picked up the story. “He would have left it at that, too, Vee, and gone about his business if I hadn’t noticed all the blood soaking through his already stew-stained breeches and insisted a physician attend him. He was most adamant it was nothing when it clearly isn’t.” The vicar’s hand flapped over the doctor’s handiwork, dragging her eyes there again. “When it is plain to see that Mr. Sinclair has sustained quite a wound.”
For the first time, Galahad displayed some proper emotion, yet instead of the anger he was well within his rights to bellow from the rooftops, it was more embarrassment. “In my defense, it’s not the sort of wound a man wants to admit to in polite company.”
“No indeed.” As if realizing for the first time that there was a lady present in that polite company, and an unmarried one at that, the Reverend Smythe suddenly colored. “Perhaps you should wait outside, Vee. Until the … um…”
“And deny her the joyous spectacle of me with my battered ass out?” Galahad waved that humiliation away with a wry smile as the doctor set about dressing his neat handiwork. “Aside from the inescapable fact that that ship has well and truly sailed, Reverend, I reckon she deserves to see me suffer a bit. I’ll bet she’s even enjoying it.”
Her lips twitched. “Just a bit.” She held her thumb and index finger a quarter of an inch apart while a rogue giggle escaped. “There is also no denying this will make an excellent story around Giles and Diana’s dinner table tomorrow.”
“Felled by pigeons and stew.”
“And the gruesome twosome outside.” As he was the aggrieved party, it seemed fair that Galahad be consulted on the punishment. “What would you like us to do about that?” She turned her back when the physician signaled he was done to at least give Galahad the privacy to return his breeches to their proper place without her gawping at what usually inhabited the front of them. Especially when the contents of the seat of those breeches had made her hot and bothered quite enough for one day despite all her lofty promises to herself that she was over him.
“Well, let’s consider the list of charges first.” His tone sounded strained—the only sign of the pain he had to be in as he righted his clothing. “There’s at least three counts of breaking and entering that I have evidence of, some petty larceny albeit the goods weren’t actually stolen but hidden, one count of attempted destruction of property because they left all Mr. Evans’s tools out to rust in the snow. One failed assault with a hammer assuming my foot survives, and I’m not sure how to categorize what happened with the pigeons.”
“And the stew?” Vee gingerly turned and was relieved to see all his distracting bits safely covered again.
“Wasn’t really anything to do with them so let’s pretend that part never happened.”
“Not a chance.” Aside from the magnificent story, she already knew the memory of his bare backside was one she would not forget anytime soon. Like his kisses, it was quite spectacular.
“In that case, I say we throw the book at them.” He managed a smile. “Consign them to me for a month of servitude. Two hours a day doing whichever menial tasks I see fit as penance for their egregious crimes. Toss in Billy, too, while you’re about it. If I’m going to be a taskmaster, I might as well deal with the whole triptych of evil in one go.”
“Even though Billy hasn’t done anything? This time at least.” While Vee believed that bad behavior should always be punished, she was against doing it retroactively. Especially to a child as distrustful and still likely to run away as Billy.
“Call me a sentimentalist…” He offered her another wry smile as he tentatively wiggled his swollen foot into his boot. One that took her right back to another conversation, before everything between them had gone to hell in a handcart. “But I’m worried about the kid. It might do him good to put those clever hands of his to better use than picking pockets, and despite all the hell they’ve just put me through, I have a feeling that those pesky Claypoles might turn out to be a good influence on him.” Part of her freshly hardened heart melted a little. “What time do they have their supper?”
“At five o’clock.” It was hard hating him when he was behaving so … admirably. When he was being so kind and understanding. So magnanimous—yet again. Bighearted even when she wanted to believe he was heartless.
Drat him.
He smiled, and the gentle humor in his eyes reminded her too much of the Galahad she had met in Brighton, making her foolish heart yearn for more of him—until she remembered how catastrophically Brighton had ended. “On the dot.” She would not be swayed or seduced by a pair of fine eyes, no matter how beguiling they were. Not when they said one thing while he did another. Like a chameleon, Galahad was an expert in camouflaging the real him behind whichever façade got him what he wanted.
“Have them report to me tomorrow at six sharp and hopefully by then I’ll have figured out something they can do that will encourage them to reflect upon their actions. In the meantime—” He nodded his thanks toward the physician and the reverend in quick succession. “Thank you for your needlework skills and your hospitality, but I’ve got me some angry birds to catch before Mr. Evans arrives and holy hell breaks loose again.”
He inclined his head politely and limped to the door.
“Galahad, wait—” She still might not like him, or ever forgive him, or be convinced that his true motives concerning her orphans were as noble as they seemed to be, but he had been wronged and he was in pain and some of that was her fault. “Those pigeons aren’t yours to catch.”
She marched past him, blaming his eyes and his bottom for creating an unwelcome new chink in her armor, and glared at the subdued twins still standing anxious sentry duty outside the office. “You two—follow me!”
They did, with their tails dangling between their legs, and so did an amused Galahad, who allowed her to take charge as he unlocked the door to his building with a giant, rusty key that had been hidden behind a loose brick. He stepped back while she ushered them inside.
Vee pointed to the stairs before she folded her arms. “Seeing as you are both expert poachers, I want those angry pigeons boxed and released into the wild within the hour.” They both gulped at the prospect but nodded.
Sydney looked to Tommy, then Tommy looked to her. “We’re going to need some bread and some buckets.”
“Fortunately, I have both. There’s bread upstairs wrapped in paper near that broken stewpot, and Mr. Evans has stored a pile of buckets in here…” As Galahad walked toward another door, the twins looked at each other in horror until Tommy found his voice.
“Er … Mr. Sinclair…” But it was too late.
As Galahad pushed open the door, a heavy drizzle of something gold and sticky oozed over his head from above, and a split second later one of the orphanage’s pillows smacked him in the face. The pillow’s casing had been cut and loosely retied, ensuring he was showered in downy feathers, which immediately stuck to the glue-like substance.
“Oh dear,” said the more exasperating Claypole in a small, terrified voice, no doubt expecting Armageddon. “In all the excitement, we forgot to tell you about the honey.”
Vee stared aghast at Galahad in all his ratty new plumage and didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. In case she did either, she bit down on her bottom lip, but even that did not stop an unladylike snort from escaping.
“You know, I said I wanted a month of servitude in reparation—” Through his shroud of feathers, his unusual green eyes locked with hers, unyielding but amused, making her like him a little bit more. “Better make that six weeks.”